WavEdd
by dshell99
Summary: Sometimes, a small greeting can be all one needs to keep going. Disclaimer: I don't own Ed, Edd, N Eddy. I only own my random ass OCs and plot.


_***Go Hawkeyes***_

 ** _For Anybodihearme, the kids, and those that work so hard everyday to make sure they can do it all..._**

As he sat down after their quick team warm up and shook the pregame jitters out of his bones, Kevin looked up into the windows across the street from the stadium and spotted a very familiar beanie and he wondered what Edd was up to in the hospital across the street.

It was _Game Day,_ and his first starting as freshman, and _everybody and their damn mother_ was at the stadium for a conference game with their rival two states away.

It was also _Family Day,_ so the crowd size was _sold out,_ and the stadium would be at _standing room only_ capacity in fifteen minutes when they opened the gates and let the crowd in.

 _Everybody_ except Edd.

Hell, _his mother_ was at the game sitting with Kevin's parents, ready to cheer on the cul-de-sac's tough boy with with them.

But Edd couldn't get out of _work_ , so he told his mother that he would see them for dinner after the game.

* * *

On the one hand, Kevin knew that Edd's work at the hospital was not only helpful to the hospital, but to his own medical studies.

He had earned his CNA license through Vo-Tech classes in high school, and would get his RN license sometime in the middle of their sophomore year at the university that was home to one of the best neurobiology research programs in the country.

Kevin just came to play football and get his degree in Sports Studies and Sports and Recreation Management because he was bound and determined to go back to Peach Creek and create a Parks and Rec program that would actually give the kids in town something to do and a safe place to do it.

Not that his childhood _sucked,_ but he figured a structured program to keep kids busy when they weren't in school would have helped him and _definitely_ his neighbors.

Ok, one set of neighbors, although he's pretty sure Double Dee would have been fine on his own to keep himself occupied when they were growing up, but Eddy and Ed had them all wrapped up in so many shenanigans that he would never know.

On the other hand, he had wished Edd was in the stadium with his parents and Edd's mom to cheer _him_ on.

* * *

But he now knows what Edd is up to as he sees him walk back and forth across a wide window, occasionally looking down at the stadium before hurrying to another part of the room.

At one point, the ravenette stops and it's clear as fucking day that he's looking for someone as he presses a hand to the window, his head moving back and forth slowly as his eyes scan the field.

So Kevin stands up and walks a little closer to the sideline and gives one broad wave of his arm and Edd's head suddenly stops moving.

And when he turns his body a bit, Kevin could see _why_ he was looking for him.

A baby was on his hip, but looking quite sad and there were tubes hanging out of its nose and arm.

Edd grabbed the child's hand made it wave. When Kevin _dramatically_ waved back, a bit of a sunlight broke across the front of the window and Kevin saw what Edd would tell him later was a baby boy with a blue cradle cap on his head, but he was wearing a onesie with their school's mascot on the front of it and _smiling_ as he took his hand from Edd's and gave a few waves of his own before clapping his hands a bit as Edd flashed the redhead a thankful grin before walking away.

And thus _it_ began.

* * *

 _It_ was a tradition of sorts for the two friends.

Edd would bring a patient he was working with to the a large common area at the end of the hall of the Pediatric Ward of the hospital, find Kevin after the team got off the field from their pregame work out, wave to the school's top quarterback and then head back into the hospital to help cure whatever was ailing the child.

The best times were the night games, though, as Kevin would wave a flashlight and then point it at the window so he could see the smiling face of the kid he was greeting and Edd's, too.

Their time spent together outside of this was minimal as their courses of study had them on opposite sides of campus, but they would always try to get together to share a meal, study, go see a movie, play a video game or just _hang out_ and see where the wind took them as they tried to destress from the pressing issues of their young adult lives.

It was nice to have someone from back home to commiserate with and who understood in that way that only old friends and close family did.

There was no pretension with the other and each could be himself.

In that sense of self, they found they had more on common than not, just different ways of going about things.

They could civilly debate any topic and slowly but surely he would always be the one to call or text first to pick his brain about anything.

It was a nice bromance, and Kevin grew to love their pregame ritual.

But others were taking notice.

* * *

Their senior year, the assistant defensive line coach asked Kevin what the hell he was doing waving at the damn windows and when Kevin explained, he snorted and shook his head as he walked away.

But then the man made a quip about it during their pregame pep talk.

If Kevin could look up into what looked like an empty window and _know_ someone there was watching and would respond back to his wave, then the defensive could spot the holes in the other team's blitz as the whistle blew to start the play.

When his teammates looked at him like he was crazy, he explained what he had been up to for the past four years and the coach looked at him in _shock_.

"You _know_ somebody up there, Barr?!" He asked and Kevin shrugged as he nodded.

"Think they could do a favor for me?" He asked damn near desperately.

"I guess he can _try,"_ Kevin answered, not knowing what one of the biggest movers and shakers on campus would want of his dorky friend.

"Get your phone and call him," the man said quickly as he started to scribble a note on the margin of their first play on his clipboard. "Tell him to bring the kid in this room down to that window at halftime if he's up for it."

Kevin ran and grabbed his phone and texted Edd who texted back that he would see what he could do.

A trainer held on to Kevin's phone and as halftime approached, the trainer waited with the device that seemed to be a lifeline to one of the most stoic, hard core lover's of America's most brutal sport.

* * *

At the two minute warning, Edd texted Kevin back that everything was in place and ready to go when he was.

During their review of the first half of the game and pep talk, Kevin told the coach that the favor was ready and the man looked like he would cry.

"Listen up you guys," he said shakily as he pulled a picture out of his pants pocket and held it up for them to see. The picture was of a _tiny_ baby in an incubator, more wires and tubes than baby. "This is my granddaughter, Amelia. She came _way too early_ last year and now has a whole bunch of shit to fight and I haven't seen her in the flesh in _weeks_ because of you lot and she just can't handle visitors. But she does like the game because she's always smiling at the crowd noise and stuff she hears on the TV even though she can't really _see it_ because she's a damn baby."

The team snorted at this point and the coach cracked a wane smile, too.

"I asked Kevin's friend here to bring her down to the window so she can see what she _can_ see and hear it all in person and apparently the doctors say she's ok for it, so when we get back out there, I want y'all to give a good Shark cheer for her, ya hear me!?"

The team erupted in a hard affirmative cheer and the coach's smile was genuine.

"Alright then. Let's go show these Cyclones what happens when you bring a storm over open waters."

* * *

When the team burst back on the field, they were _fired up_.

While Edd was a bit surprised, he figured the coach or Kevin had given them a good pep talk to keep their spirits up and thus them _still winning._

They were up by two touchdowns, but Edd knew that the tide could change at a moments notice, so he held on to the hope that they were ready to still keep fighting.

What he wasn't expecting was the entire team to crowd around the coach as he pulled Kevin next to him and leaned over to speak in his ear over the roar of the crowd.

Kevin then pointed up to Edd's regular window and Edd said, "You should wave now."

The coach's daughter looked down on the field, her wired up daughter on her hip and gave a little wave to her father, the coach, and the proudest grandpa in the damn state.

Little Amelia followed her lead and like the first time and so many times afterwards when Kevin looked up into that window, a beam of sunlight showed across it and they all smiled and awed as a baby girl waved back.

The camera on the field put the coach's face on the big screen, and _everybody and their damn momma_ saw a coach get the pep _he needed_ to keep going.

Edd took a video from his point of view, the child's happy squeal of, "PAWPAW!" when she saw him on the big screen in the end zone being a rally cry for a family that had been through so much that nothing but time, a good doctor, a saint of a nurse, a few dozen miracles, and _faith_ would cure.

The Sharks won the game 34-17.

* * *

Twenty years later, the head of Pediatric Neurology, Dr Eddward Vincent, hustles his staff of candy stripers and interns into a common area equipped like a bit of a rumpus room with a couple of pinball machines and old school arcade machines, tables of puzzles, card games, coloring books and the like. A small popcorn machine was in one corner next to a replica of a classic hot dog vendor cart.

"The people you're taking care of today need this, but there's still work to do. Make sure everyone's IV machines are operating properly, if anyone needs to go back to their room, they can go. Medication will be taken on schedule. But most of all, have fun. And don't forget to wave."

After halftime, right before they took the field again, the team gathers around their coach on the edge of the sideline, and one of their alma mater's most famous alumni, Coach Kevin Barr, as he leads the team in a big dramatic wave at the window and a small snort is heard over a video of doctor's, nurses, candy stripers, families and their young patients as they wave and cheer back.

They didn't win the game, but the wave and the kids, as always, won over so many hearts and a small tradition waved on.


End file.
